| One bullock, One ram, and Seven lambs, | With meat offering of flour and oil, |
for a burnt-offering (Num. xxix. 8). And one kid for a sin-offering of atonement (Num. xxix. 11).
This was a day of great solemnity—“It shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls” (Lev. xxiii. 27), &c, “Ye shall do no work; . . . it is a day to make atonement for you before the Lord your God” (Lev. xxiii. 28); and whoever among the congregation did not afflict his soul, or whoever did any work therein, was to be cut off from among his people (Lev. xxiii. 29, 30). “It shall be . . . a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day at even, from even to even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath” (Lev. xxiii. 32).
The high priest was not to enter within the veil to the inner tabernacle, except on this day, “that he die not,” and then only with the blood of the sin-offerings for himself and the congregation, peculiar to this day.
Before doing so he laid aside his ornamental garments and put on a linen dress (Lev. xvi. 2–4). He took in his hands a censer of burning coals from the altar of burnt offerings and put on it a handful of incense, that the cloud of the incense might cover the mercy seat, whereon the Lord appeared in the cloud, “that he die not” (Lev. xvi. 12, 13). He then took the blood of the sin-offerings, both for the priest and people, within the veil, and sprinkled it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward, and before the mercy seat seven times (Lev. xvi. 15, 16), to make an atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins (Lev. xvi. 16).
This is the only sacrifice described in the Law, which corresponds with the words in Hebrews xiii. 11:—“The bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary for sin, are burned without the camp.”
No other blood was annually brought into the sanctuary (or inner temple) by the high priest on behalf of the people, and sprinkled on and before the mercy seat; and the flesh of these, as well as of some other offerings, was burned without the camp.
The service of this day required that in addition to a bullock for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt-offering, to make atonement for himself and his house (Lev. xvi. 3–6), the high priest should take of the congregation of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin-offering (Lev. xvi. 5); he was to present the two kids at the door of the tabernacle (ver. 7), and “cast lots,” one for the Lord and one “for the scape-goat” (vers. 8 and 10). He killed the former for a sin-offering for the people, and proceeded as already described (p. 23).
In addition to the blood taken within the veil, the high priest was to put some of it upon the horns of the altar, and sprinkle it seven times upon it to hallow it (vers. 18, 19).
Then, as to the other, or scape-goat, Aaron laid both his hands on the head of the live goat and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins; putting them on the head of the goat, and sent him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, and the “goat bore them away to a land not inhabited” (Lev. xvi. 21).